You work out hard and you want it to show. But you won’t get the look you’re after if your hard work is hidden under a layer of fat.

You need all the tricks you can get your hands on to burn fat, and you want to do it quickly and efficiently. After all, who has hours to spend on the endless drudgery of a treadmill?

Are you gonna bury those washboard abs under a layer of pudge? Or will you tap into these three fat burning secret weapons? This is the stuff those really ripped guys at the gym have figured out and aren’t telling you, cause they don’t want you showing them up!

By the way, I “stole” these three tips from the TACFIT Commando program developed by my friend Scott Sonnon. He released an updated version of the program today.

Contrary to what mainstream fitness has been saying for decades, long slow distance running is not the most direct route to fat loss. It’s true that moderate intensity, steady state exercise uses primarily fat oxidation as fuel, but that isn’t the total picture.

In a study done to compare the fat burning benefits of traditional “cardio” training and high intensity intervals, two groups were assigned different training regimens. Group A performed the regular moderate intensity cardio regime (ex. jogging or bicycling) for 20 weeks, and Group B performed a high intensity interval training routine for 15 weeks. Group B lost nine times more fat than Group A — and in 5 weeks less!

Why are high intensity intervals so much more effective?

Interval circuits place such an intense demand on the system that it takes your body up to 36 hours to work its way back to homeostasis (a normal state). That means you’ll incinerate calories for hours after you finish training, even if you’re just lying on the sofa. That aftershock of fat burning potential is called Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).

Plus, high intensity interval training is fast! That means you no longer have to spend 30 minutes to an hour jogging your life away on a treadmill. You can spend more time pumping iron instead.

We’ve known for years that muscle tissue is highly active metabolically, and it helps us burn more calories during the day. So more muscle equals better fat burn, right? Unfortunately that’s only partly true — and not to the extent we once believed. A pound of muscle is now thought to burn an extra 6 calories per hour (as opposed to the 25 or more per hour we once believed). You’d have to pack on an awful lot of beef to make much difference.

But that’s only one side of the equation. Muscle mass provides a number of other important benefits, foremost of which is better management of insulin. Insulin is your “storage” hormone. Its job is to transport fuel into your cells. The higher your ratio of fat to lean tissue, the less sensitive your lean tissue becomes to insulin. Basically, when your body fat percentage creeps too high and insulin comes knocking, your lean mass stops answering the door. If you see a vicious cycle in all of this, you’re right!

One way to encourage your muscles to start answering the door again is through resistance exercise aimed at growth. Why is it important to improve insulin sensitivity? Well, if your muscles don’t answer the door, guess who will… Yep, your fat cells are always ready with a warm welcome.

To top it all off, long slow cardio can actually cause you to LOSE muscle because it increases your level of cortisol. If you focus instead on short bursts of high intensity effort using exercises that target the entire body in all its ranges of motion, you can actually BUILD muscle while you do your cardio! Fat burning just got easier, and a lot more fun.

Untapped Fat Burning Tip #3: Use lactic acid to spike growth hormone

That burn you feel in your muscles when you’re in the middle of a workout is caused by the buildup of lactic acid. It’s the “misery” that keeps non-exercisers from working out, and it’s the rite of passage hardcore trainers push for simply as a matter of masochism.

But there’s much more to it than that. The lactic acid burn is also your body’s trigger to start the secretion process for human growth hormone. And growth hormone acts to build lean mass AND reduce fat.

A 2006 study from Brazil which measured four different repetition protocols determined that what they called Functional Isometrics was the most potent metabolic stimulator. Hold a static position under enough of a load and you’ll feel the burn… That same burn is what you should shoot for in your cardio training if you want to tap that GH release and send your fat metabolism into overdrive.

It’s not a magic bullet, but it does play a powerful role in your quest to shred your physique. Sounds like a good deal!

You don’t have to spin your life away on an exercise bike to get the shredded look you’re after. And you don’t have to sacrifice your hard-earned muscle to get lean. All you need is an intelligent program that taps into the most efficient fat burning methods available today.

You can spend a lot of time and energy putting your own program together using these principles. Or you can let the experts do it for you. One of the most effective program designs I’ve seen — and one that taps into all 3 of these principles and more — is TACFIT Commando. And the cool